Emigrants

THE FARMHAND WHO DROWNED IN THE MILL BROOK

------11 - - - - - THE FARMHAND WHO DROWNED IN THE MILL BROOK -1ROBERT , Nn..st AND MARTA'S SECOND SON, was ten years younger than Karl Oskar. When he was little he had caused his parents a great deal of trouble by running away as soon as he was outside the house. He would disappear into the woodlands and they might spend hours looking for him among the junipers. They hung a cowbell round his neck so they could locate him, but even this did not always help, for they could not hear the tinkle when the child sat quietly. He did not change as he grew older: if he was not watched he would disappear into the woods and hide; if he was asked to do chores he might run away. And as the boy grew older they were ashamed to hang a bell on him as if he were an animal. When his parents ceded Korpamoen, Robert was given employment during the summers as herdboy for Akerby rote (a rote is a parish district with common grazing rights, etc.). Thus there was one mouth less to be fed from the porridge bowl in the spare room. Robert received food from the farmers, and two daler a year in wages (fifty-eight cents). Every fall he received also a cheese and a pair of woolen stockings. He liked it well out in the wastelands, alone with the cattle. During the long summer days, while cows and sheep grazed lazily, he would lie on his back in some glade and stare into the heavens. He learned to whistle, and he sang without even thinking of it. Later, when his shepherd days were over, he realized why he had done these things: he had felt free. For six weeks every year during three succeeding years he attended the school held by Rinaldo. Schooling came easily to him; the very first year he learned to read and write. Though Rinaldo had only one 20 FAR M HAN D WHO DR 0 W NED I NTH E MIL L B ROO K 21 eye, he had seen more of this world than most of the parishioners with two. Once he had been as far away as Gothenburg, where he had seen the sea, and he told the children about his life's adventures. They enjoyed this more than the Little Catechism and the Biblical history put together. The day Robert finished school he received a book as a gift from the schoolmaster. It was a History ot Nature. Rinaldo said that when school days were finished, children seldom touched a book; but if they never improved their reading ability, they would soon lose it. He gave this book to Robert so that he might continue reading when he finished school. The History ot Nature was Robert's first possession. But for more than a year it happened that he didn't open his book. During the winter he attended confirmation class at the dean's, and also helped his brother Karl Oskar fell oaks. The oak timbers would later be brought to Karlshamn to be used for shipbuilding. They cut pines, too, the tallest in the forest, for masts on ships. While Robert helped with tree felling and the sawing of timbers which were to travel on the sea, he followed the ships-to-be in thought. The harbor town of Karlshamn was fifty miles away, and the peasants bringing timbers there needed two days and a night for the round trip. Robert thought that he would like to ride with the timbermen to Karlshamn in order to see the sea with his own eyes. Nils and Marta churned and sold some ten pounds of butter from their own cow in order to raise money for a Bible to give their son at his first Communion. The Bible he received was bound in leather and cost one riksdaler and thirty-two shillings-the same amount as the price of a newborn calf. But it was a Bible that would stand wear and tear; the Holy Writ must be bound in leather to last a lifetime. Robert now owned two books, one worldly and one religious. Rinaldo had said that all people ought to read these books-from one they learned about the body and all earthly things, from the other about the soul and things spiritual. The History ot Nature contained all Robert needed to know about this world; the Bible, about the world hereafter. But...